Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Back in the 206!

Episode Date: April 15, 2022

Hosts Ty Dane Gonzalez and Colby Patnode preview the Mariners' home opening series with the Astros, review their first week of the season and provide an update on how their minor league system is faring.Be sure to follow or subscribe to Locked On Mariners wherever you prefer your podcasts! For questions and other inquiries, email: [e-mail] the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @danegnzlz | @CPat11For more of Ty and Colby, check out their Patreon: patreon.com/controlthezone/Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKED15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.BetOnlineBetOnline.net has you covered this season with more props, odds and lines than ever before. BetOnline – Where The Game Starts! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Mariners are back in Seattle for their first home stand of 2022. We're going to get you set for their big weekend series against the Astros and more here on today's episode of Lockdown Mariners. Colby, hit it. You are Locked on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the Locked on podcast network, your team every day. It is Friday, April 15th, 2020, and this is a Lockdown Mariners podcast. Happy Jackie Robinson Day.

Happy Mariners Home Opener Day. A lot of fun stuff happening. Hopefully my audio is in sync with my video today. Apologies for yesterday's episode. Not sure what happened in there. So hopefully that's fixed itself today. Thank you so much for making us your first listen of the day. We are free and available on all platforms.

I'm your host, Taday Gonzalez. Join as always by my co-host, Colby Patnode. Be sure to follow the show on Twitter at L-O-U-U-N-R-N-R-N-R-N-E. And you can follow me at Dane-G-N-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-P-E-E-E-P-E-E-E-E-B-E-E-E-E-E-L-E. Be sure also check out our Patreon where we talk about the Mariners even more and also get into some non-baseball talk twice a week. Visit patreon.com forward slash control zone for more information on that. If you want more of us and if this is your first time joining us here on lockdown Mariners, welcome to the show.

If you like what you hear, give us a follow or subscribe wherever you listen to this. And if you're watching us on YouTube, hit the subscribe button, turn on the notification bell. Give this video a thumbs up and tell your friends, tell your enemies, tell whoever you want to tell. To come check us out, we greatly appreciate it. So Colby, Mariners are finally done with their Midwest nightmare. They are home for the next 10 games. They got the Astros, the Rangers, and the Royals coming up. Astros first here for a big weekend series, three games set tonight.

Marco Gonzalez opens things up for the Mariners against Jake Oda Rizzi. Oda Rizzi and his first start against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim last week. Four innings pitch, six hits allowed two earn runs, two strikeouts, No walks in his career against the Mariners at T-Mobile Park. The Mariners are hitting 2.13 against him with a 2-99 on-base percentage, 377 slugging percentage. That's in seven games. He has struck out pretty much a batter per nine.

Ennings 3.6 walks per nine. What are you hoping to see out of Marco? And what are you hoping to see out of the bats against Oterizzi, who they've, well, not really this group of hitters for the Mariners, but the Mariners organization, as a whole has struggled against. Yeah. For Marco, basically you're looking for the exact opposite of what he did in Minnesota.

Give your team a chance here. Again, it's a right-handed heavy lineup. You know, there are a few more lefties in there like Brantley and Tucker. But, I mean, it's not like those guys are exactly breaks.

So, yeah, you're going to have to, you know, throw strikes. You're going to have to get that cutter in. You're going to have to command the cutter. It's going to be a huge pitch tonight.

The cutter and the change-up in particular against the righties. Then he'll probably need the curveball against the lefties, but we'll see. But, yeah, his last outing, he just couldn't get the cutter where it needed to be, kind of left it middle of the plate, or he would overthrow it and it wouldn't end up high. So he's got to get back to where he usually is. It'll be interesting to see what he does because, again, you know, It's, it's, there, there are, there are some questions about Marco now. A lot of people are freaked out.

And, you know, he didn't get off to a great start last year. And now he's coming home to make the first home start of the year in a season with incredible expectations. Is he going to be amped up? Is he going to, you know, overthrow again? What's, what's going to happen? How is Marco going to handle that situation? So, but yeah, yeah, I think we'll, we'll see pretty early on.

If he can get that cutter in on the hands of the righties, throw the change up for strikes. then I think he'll be okay. I think he'll at least keep them in the game. But if not, you know, it's one of those situations where he might have to wear it a little bit. The bullpen's in pretty good shape. And they do have the off day on Monday, so they don't have to completely sacrifice this game. But if they get down early, then, yeah, Marco might have to, you know, just use as many of his 85, 90 pitches as he can to get as many outs as he can. But yeah, we'll see.

pretty early on. I think if he can get the cutter off the inside corner, get some swings on it, then I think he's going to be in pretty good shape. And then the offense against Oda Rizzi? How about a double followed by another double? Why can you just get back-to-back doubles? That'd be nice. Yeah. Like not rely on the home run

ball. Not rely on Mitch Hanigur getting a cookie of a pitch to hit over the fence. That'd be nice. It'll be interesting to see, again, they're at home, first home game. There's a lot of excitement for this one. So it'll be kind of interesting to see how they handle that emotionally. Jesse Winker, obviously first time playing in Seattle.

Adam Fraser, Julio, yeah. Swares, like a lot of new faces. So we'll see how they all handle that. Oterizzi is kind of, you know, Alex Cobb or Dylan Bundy. I forget which I always get those two mixed up. Dylan Bundy, right? Yes, he's kind of similar to Bundy and that he doesn't have overwhelming stuff. But, you know, throw strikes for the most part.

He goes right after guys. So they should have a chance to score runs. But again, the offense, aside from the last game in Chicago, and even then there were issues, hasn't been great. So I'd like to see him continue to kind of do what they've been doing. They're taking plenty of walks. They're not really striking out. Just a matter of, you know, actually getting the big hits when you need them.

because their approach has been, for the most part, fine with some exceptions. A couple come to mind right away, but whatever. We'll talk about that later. But yeah, just keep taking those borderline pitches, look for a pitch you can drive, except when you get it, let's try not missing it today. That would be a huge step. A lot of fun stuff happening at the ballpark tonight. Etreau throwing out first pitch.

And as we have now learned from Kevin Martinez, Because Itiro is going to come out in his full 2001 uniform to throw this first pitch to a special guest catcher. And he guesses us to who that might be because it might be King Griffey Jr. I know that's kind of the popular answer here. But he was also in New York City this morning. Obviously, that's not impossible for him to make the trip out to Seattle and get there by first pitch tonight. But any other guesses other than the kid? I don't it feels like it almost has to be because griffy is the guy who started this tradition

well i mean jacky robinson started but you know what i mean like this tradition of april 15th every player in major league baseball wears the number 42 this was griffy's idea 25 years ago it's also the 25th anniversary we love tens and fives in this you know in our culture basically um so the 25th anniversary carries more significance than the 24th um so i don't i feel like it almost has to be Griffey, but again, yeah, he was in New York this morning. I don't know, you know, how, I don't know exactly when the, how the time frame lines up, but it is about a six-hour flight. So, yeah, it would be a pretty tight, tight crunch there. The other thing I'd think back is maybe somebody from the 2001 team, Edgar Martinez, possibly.

It could be, I mean, it's not going to be Lou Penel. although I would like to hear from Lou. I know he's not in great health. Mike Cameron maybe. Yeah. Dan Wilson. Yeah. Yeah.

I just, you know, it's kind of weird to me that you'd say there's a special guest and then not tell them, not tell people who it is if it's not one of the big guys. You know, if it's not Griffey or Edgar. Could it be Felix?

Ooh, that's a good call. Yeah. I mean, they didn't really play with each other that long. But if it's not specific. important to Ichero yeah then it could be Felix um it could be Kyle Seeger because I feel like I feel like if it was going to be special to each row they would do that during each or a weekend rather than for opening day I feel like opening

day is probably more of a celebration of the Mariners in general could it be Kyle Seeger that's I mean I know like I know the relationship with Jerry to Poto is not great but and that's that's being generous there but maybe he's got a decent enough relationship with the organization or enough respect for the organization, the only organization he ever played for to come back? I didn't show much respect last year. Anyways. Yeah.

I don't know, man. Like, it feels to me like if it's not Griffey, there's no point in teasing it like like he did. But hey, you know, if it's Edgar, that's great. If it's Felix, that's great. You know, if it's my Cameron, that's great. But it just feels like Griffey's the only one. that would require a tease. And he also just makes the most sense.

So if it's not him, I'm going to guess it's Mike Cameron, kind of try and tie into that 2001 team again. Yeah. And Camie is around already. We know that. Like, he's not across the country. So I think my camera might be an interesting one. But yeah, I think a dark, dark horse would be Felix,

but he hasn't technically retired yet. You know what I mean? So. Sure. But he's not pitching. So, yeah, that'd be fun. I'll say this. I think Felix would be the most fun for the fans.

Griffey makes the most sense by far. And then I guess the other one that's kind of being thrown around out there right now is Kenji Jojima. Okay. But that. I like Kenji too. I like Kenji too, but it's also like, is that much of a huge surprise? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe it's Iwukuma. Maybe. That would be cool. Yeah, I just feels like that's more about the Japanese connection than it is, you know, Jackie Robinson Day or opening day. It just feels like it has to be like a potential Hall of Famer or somebody who's in the Hall of Fame. And that's me, it just, everything says it should be grippy, but it might not be able to be.

And if it's not, then I hope it's Felix or my Cameron. Those are two of my favorite players of all time, too. So that'll work. But yeah, yeah, I mean, now I'm interested to see who catches the first. first pitch, so they got me there. I'll give Kevin Martinez credit. I'm going to tune into the first pitch now. Yeah. And it's, uh, it's, it's, it's going to be, uh, interesting to see. Because like, there's definitely a lot of possibilities there. There's obviously the big, obvious one with, with Griffey, but I don't know, I'm really into the idea of it being Felix. I think it would

be cool, too, if it was Seeger. Um, you know, last, last game played at T-Mobile Park was his last game, uh, for him to, uh, open up the season, catching the first pitch for METRO. That would be neat. All right, let's go back to the Astros real quick. They are four and two. Lost to the Diamondbacks, lost to the Angels. Justin Verlander's

going to be on the bump. Tomorrow, you're going to be at that game. Chris Flexen going for the Mariners. Verlander making his second start since recovering from Tommy John surgery. First start of the year against the Angels, five innings pitch, one earn run.

It was a home run solo shot. Seven strikeouts, three walks, and he got a bit lucky in that start, didn't he? Yeah, lots of hard contact for Verlander. His expected ERA was 626. So, you know, you can kind of do the math there yourself. Four runs over five is kind of what the expected numbers would be. Like I said, gave up a lot of hard contact. It's early.

It's when you're coming off of Tommy John, typically the first thing you get back is your raw stuff and velocity. The last thing you get back is control and command. And that's kind of what it appears his first start indicated. Three walks are kind of out of character over five innings. Lots of hard contact. So quite a few barrels as well. Didn't generate nearly as many whiffs or a high chase rate either. So it just looks to me from somebody who doesn't know, you know,

anything about Justin Verlander's rehab that he's right where most guys typically are the first year they come back from Tommy John where it just takes a little while to find to find control and command be consistent with it. That's typically what it is. It's a feel thing. And it usually comes back. Sometimes it takes a couple weeks. Sometimes it takes a year. So we'll see what we get from Verlander. But yeah, it's it's the numbers are a little bit deceiving based on how he pitched in Anaheim. but he still threw the ball pretty well. Then real quick, Matt Brash, making his second career start on Sunday. Give tickets away to that game, main level tickets.

Shout out to Quentin Johnson, who won those. Hope he has a great time, probably listening right now. Hope you have a great time, Quentin, you and whoever you are taking along. And then Jose Orkitti, taking the bump for the Astros. Let's talk about Brash real quick here, though. how was he what do you want to see from him attacking this kind of lineup

obviously Ari went up and gets a really good lineup but the white socks a little bit hurt but still you know still really good lineup with Eloy Yemenez and Jose Abraeu

Tim Anderson etc but now he's got to go up against guys like Michael Brantley Kyle Tucker Jose Altuve Alex Spregman etc what do you want to see out of Matt Brash just keep being aggressive

go right after these guys trust your stuff it'd be nice to see him get some whiffs on the fastball. You didn't have any in his last start. Relyed heavily on the slider and the knuckle curve, which is going to be a running theme, and it's a good one, so why wouldn't you? But yeah, I would like to see him just remain aggressive,

go right after these guys. Don't let them intimidate you, and he didn't in his last start. And kind of control your emotions. It's your first home start. The building's still going to be pretty juiced, even though it is a Sunday. So just kind of, you know, don't let the emotions overcome and be very, very aggressive.

And he already showed that he was able to do both of those things in his last start. So I would just, you know, roll it back and hope to get a similar outcome to what he got in Chicago. But yeah, just don't nibble. Go right after these guys. All right. Well, we're going to recap the first week of Mariners baseball. They played seven games. We're going to look back on those.

Maybe hand out some grades and maybe some takeaways and all. all that good stuff. Just a moment. But real quick, a reminder of this episode of Lockdown Mariners is brought to you by Bilt Bar. This is the time of year that I've pretty much given up on all of my New Year's resolutions, but not this year. I'm sticking to my resolution to eat right thanks to Bilt Bar. And it almost feels like it's not really a resolution because I actually enjoy eating them. They are low calorie, high proteins. So replace your candy bars with these. They are better and they are 100% real chocolate. Go to Bilt.com. Scroll down. to the macros chart you'll be blown away high protein low cal high fiber low carb most spilt bars

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of the day, just like you do here every day. And just a reminder to check out Locked on MLB Prospects. Host Lindsay Crosby is a prospect encyclopedia. And he's going deep on the MLB stars of tomorrow. It's free and available wherever you get podcasts just like us. Lindsay is actually doing a deep dive on the Mariners Farm System today. So go check that out after you're done, listen to us. If you want to hear more about what's going on with the Mariners Farm System,

we're actually going to be talking a little bit about the Mariners Farm System later on in this show. But let's look back at the Mariners' first week of the season here. They dealt with a lot of crazy weather, delays, postponements. They ended up going three and four. They had a four-game losing streak after starting the year two and oh. They had some offensive miscues, some defensive miscues. You know, it was kind of all over the place. Pretty inconsistent first week for the Mariners.

It's opening week for everyone, of course. So let's start with the offense here. Let's just give a grade, like a blanket grade here, letter grade on how you feel the offense performed through the first seven games of the year. See? Yeah. I feel like that's pretty good. I mean, like, look, they didn't strike out a ton. They walked quite a bit.

They had plenty of traffic. They just couldn't really convert on it. So I like the approach for the most part, aside from a few individuals. It just, you know, unfortunately you couldn't cash it in. So it's like a great idea. But until you can make it a reality, it's really not super valuable. You know what I mean? So I think a C is pretty fair.

You know, they didn't face like world beating pitching either. So I can't really go much higher than a C. like I said, the approach was good. The end results, they just kind of speak for themselves. So I don't think I can go any higher than like a C. Yeah. They had the advantage in a lot of the pitching matchups and just weren't able to take advantage of those favorable matchups. And that's really the issue along with, you know, not being able to convert, as you said, with runners in scoring position.

That was a huge struggle for them. But despite that, they still scored four plus runs in four of the seven games. Like, that's not terrible. That should get you a win most nights more often than not. But, you know, especially with, you know, the bullpen pitching the way that it is right now, the starting rotation looks okay. And we're going to talk about that in just a second. But overall, yeah, this offense is just the batts with the base is clear have been pretty good.

And then once they get guys on base, it's a lot of. aggression, a lot of hyper aggression, really. A lot of, you know, three pitch strikeouts or a lot of 02 counts, just getting a little too antsy at the plate, I feel, for a lot of these guys. You know, Mitch Hanager is one guy that we've talked about. Adam Frazier hasn't been able to convert in some chances as well. There's, you know, there's been a bunch of guys. There really isn't one particular person that you can just solely point the finger at. Is there anyone that, maybe you want to give a specific grade to or maybe a shout out how about actually how about this let's talk about who had the best debut for the meritors through the first week of the season

out of all the new newcomers okay uh i mean probably matt brash um you're talking about guys hitters i mean yeah yeah um probably winker uh just a ton of walks a lot of hard contact run into some bad luck. But he looks, you know, there's no reason for concern whatsoever. Suarez really turned it up quite a bit, particularly in the White Sox series. So it kind of looks like he, and he's always going to be kind of an up and down player. That's just kind of the player he is. Frazier has had some bad luck.

He's also had some bad at bats, not many, but a couple sprinkled in there. So yeah, I guess it's probably by default. fault, it's Winker. Then I would probably say Suarez. Sores made a couple nice defensive plays, too. And then it's Frazier. And I think that's how you rank them after one week.

But there's certainly things to like in all of their game right now. And all of them have, in some way, helped the Mariners win a game. So, yeah. Not a bad start from the newcomers. Yeah, Julio obviously. Yeah, Julio obviously helped you win game too.

But, you know, overall, he's gotten screwed you know for lack of a better term on on five uh strikeouts on uh bad uh strike three calls uh that were clearly on the outside of uh of the zone uh jesse winker yeah like you said he's put together some really strong at bats just hasn't really uh you know the results aren't really there right now adam fraser has had a couple of moments but he's also had some uncharacteristic strikeouts over the last couple games. Just, you know, the quality of those at-bats could be better.

He's also had a little bit of bad luck as well. Eugenio Suarez has been up and down. We've literally talked, we literally talked about this yesterday. It's, you know, one game, he strikes out three or four times, and then the next game, he goes two for four with a double and a home run. That's just been kind of Suarez's thing thus far through the first week of the season. And then, you know, of course, he had some pretty neat

defensive plays over the last couple of games as well. Let's talk about the pitching, though. Well, actually, real quick, speaking of, you know, shoutouts for the offensive guys. Shout out to the catchers. We talked about this yesterday, you know, like everyone expected. The catchers were obviously going to be the best offensive group on the Mariners to the first week of the season. Cal Raleigh, Tom Murphy, Luis Therens have really all held up their end of the bargain whenever they've been in the lineup. I believe you said this yesterday that all Mariners' catchers have gotten on base at least once in each game this far, whether it's via the walk or via hit or home run, what have you. So, yeah, they've been surprisingly really good at the plate this far and not awful behind the plate either. You know, there's been, you know, a couple moments here and there.

But overall, and hey, you know, I forget, was it Terence or was it Murphy on that relay throw in Minnesota, the one where they lost for nothing? They actually caught a relay throw. Incredible. Progress has been made. So let's talk about the pitching now. Obviously, Marco Gonzalez didn't have a great start. Robbie Ray has kind of gotten off to a shaky start, but, you know, the last game can't really hold that too much against them, considering the weather conditions.

Chris Flexen. Well, all right. You know, Twitter is going to be all over you again. Chris Flexing could have had a better outing in Minnesota as well. But Matt Brash fantastic in his first debut and then first

debut, geez, in his debut. And then Logan Gilbert has been pretty solid, not fantastic, but pretty solid. It's been, you know, up and down at times. but for the most part, he leveled out,

especially in the first game against the twins after any number two. So let's talk about the pitching. Starting rotation, what are you going to give a grade for? B minus, B, somewhere in that range. I disagree. Gilbert's looked great. The nice thing about Gilbert is that in his last outing, he really didn't have the slider working for him.

It wasn't awful, but it just didn't have the same bite it did in Minnesota where he was dominant. So, but we still saw that, yes, the fastball is so good that it can carry him against a good lineup for a few innings. So the fastball's still there. He still gets tremendous value out of that pitch. He's been your best starter so far. I mean, granted, only he and Ray have made two starts. So kind of, you know, pointless to really trying to determine that right now.

But yeah, Marco was a disaster. Flexen was okay. I had some bad luck, some bad pitch decisions, the O2 cutter for a guy who was flailing at your change up. Command was a little off. Yeah, yeah. And we'll see, you know, they talked about the cold and all that stuff. It's like, we'll see, we'll see. And then obviously, Robbie Ray has been not disappointing, but not quite Robbie Ray, not what he was last year, which we kind of knew was going to happen.

but the strikeouts haven't been there yet. The slider command in the first two starts have been poor. You can blame the cold in the first one. You can blame the rain in the second one. That's fine. I'm not going to tell you you're wrong to do that, but the fact still remains. He hasn't had the sharp slider yet.

That's been an issue. Velocity was down a little bit. He got it back up to 94 in the last few innings against the White Sox, but the Velo has been down slightly. Although we could see him feature a nice curb ball, actually against the white socks there made an adjustment start throwing a curveball so uh yeah overall i would give it a b minus b um but uh nothing nothing i'm overly concerned about at this stage well it's obviously an a plus just because of matt brash uh no but seriously it's uh probably

yeah i i would say b minus to a b is a pretty good spot for them there's been some really good starts out of these guys uh let's talk about the bullpen then the bullpen has pretty much picked up right where it's left off. Honestly, I think I would give the bullpen an A minus, maybe a B plus. Because really the thing that's dragging maybe their numbers down right now is the blowout game in which they use,

you know, guys number 7, 8, 9, and 10 in their bullpen, not, you know, the main guys. Like the lead dogs in the bullpen have been great thus far for the most part. Diego Castillo obviously gave up a run in Chicago that led to that win. for them. But, you know, Drew Steckin Rider, Paul Seawald, Andres Munoz has been fantastic, aside from the home run that he gave up to Buxon, eight straight strikeouts right now for him. Matt Festa kind of looks like a dude right now. So, yeah, a lot of good stuff going on in this bullpen despite some injuries to Sergio Romo and Casey Sadler. What would you give the bullpen?

Yeah, probably an A minus. The only thing keeping it from being an A is that, terrible, what was that, Saturday in Minneapolis. It was bad. It was bad. But, you know, just kind of one of those games. Right now, the Mariners' bullpen leads all of Major League Baseball in K-per-9,

which is, I mean, obviously, that's a great sign. That's what you want from your bullpen. They also have the, let's see here, the fifth lowest base on ball per nine from their bullpen. It's been good. The Mariners' bullpen has been very good. haven't blown any leads yet.

Again, the guys who have pitched poorly, it's been like one outing, and I wouldn't even say they pitched poorly per se. But the bullpen's been probably the most consistent part of this team. And so far, it seems to pretty much have carried over from where it was last year. A couple new faces. But for the most part, it seems like it's relatively close to what it was last year. And that's a really good sign.

But again, it's only been a week. Yeah, for sure. All right, so we're going to give you guys an update on what's going on in the Mariners minor league system in just a moment. But real quick, a reminder of this episode of Locked-on Mariners is brought to you by BetOnline. Betonline.net is your number one source for all your betting stats and sports info. Find all of the latest sports developments, league reviews and news, including this year's basketball playoffs and the start of the major league baseball season. Bet Online is your continued source for all your sporting wagering information. from live betting to playoffs, e-sports, and more.

Head to the website today or use your mobile device to learn more about the trends and action. Bet online where the game starts. So we have had a few games going on in the minor league season. The AAA season started on April 5th, and then the rest of the minor leagues started on April 8th. And we've seen some good pitching performances out of some of the top Mariners' young arms.

we've also seen some pretty good performances out of their 2021 draft class. Colby, let's start with some of the guys from the 2021 draft class. Edwin Arroyo, Spencer Packard, Harry Ford's obviously been playing some down in Modesto and catching, of course. What have you seen down there? Yeah, the 2021 draft class is certainly interesting. It's far too early to draw any conclusions on any of them. but Edwin Arroyo is off to a pretty nice start, which is nice to see for an 18-year-old in Modesto.

Right now he's sitting 292 with a 4-14 on base and a 4-17 slugging. A couple stolen bases as well, playing some shortstop down there for Modesto. Switch hitter. You know, again, he's only 18. We'll see he's probably going to stay there the entire year. I doubt they get super aggressive with him. And that's perfectly fine. There's no reason to really rush Edwin O'Roye.

all that much. Maybe the biggest star is probably too big of a word here. But Michael Morales, the third round pick, is off to a really nice start. He is also in Modesto, 19 years old. His numbers are a bit deceiving. If you just look at the traditional numbers, he has a 579 ERA in his two starts. But nine in a third inning's pitched. He's allowed eight base runners, and he struck out 14. So he's also averaging. 1.33 ground balls to fly balls. So ground ball pitcher who's missing bats at 19 years old in the minors is a really good sign. Modesto's defense, not been great.

It's not been great, and it's led to some inflated ERAs. But when you watch Morales pitch, he looks very, very good, flashing four above average pitches down there. And again, he's 19 years old, very talented Vanderbilt commit. Mariner's were able to kind of steal him away from Vanderbilt for a million bucks in the third and so far that that looks like a pretty worthwhile investment for it has been gotten off to a pretty slow start here but he is drawing walks he does look comfortable at the plate and he is hitting the ball fairly hard again he's 18 years old playing in modesto so yeah there's going to be a

learning curve there but yeah so far the early returns on the mariners top picks of the 2021 draft uh look pretty promising and then uh let's talk about some of just the other top guys in the Mariners Farm system as a whole, George Kirby, Noel V. Marte. What has stood out from those guys for you? Yeah, Kirby went down to AA after he lost the fifth starter's job. And I don't really think it was much of a competition. It was kind of a courtesy competition more or less. But he went down there and he's gone down there and he's looked pretty good. Again, he's still trying to refine the breaking stuff. we saw that the breaking stuff in in the majors is still be flat at times that's really the only thing that's holding him back from pitching in the big leagues he's going to be ready at some point this

year he just had a great outing the other day and he went five innings gave up just two hits struck out eight on 76 pitches he no walks because of course touching 98 with the fastball the curveball on the slider are actually pretty wicked as well so it was a really good start him. Sorry. It was a really good start for him, and he's off to a very nice start down there in Arkansas. I doubt he's there much beyond middle of May, possibly June.

They're going to want to save some of those bullets for Major League Baseball. So, yeah, I don't think he's going to be down there for long. And then Levi Stout had a decent start last night as well. probably honestly better than decent. Adam Macco has been really good. What have you seen from those guys? Yeah, Stout is a guy who it's all going to come down to his control and command. The stuff is just as good as anybody's in the system.

Right now, opponents are hitting a buck 62 against him in AA. He struck out 11 guys in 11 innings. He's only walked two, which is good. It's a good sign for him. The fastball change of combo for Stout is what's going to carry. him to the big leagues. The changeup might be the best in the organization, if not for Devin's sweet, ridiculous changeup. But it is a legit plus pitch. The slider is actually working pretty well, too. He's 96, 97 miles an hour. Levi Stout is a guy who, if he can throw strikes

repeatedly, he's going to be a number of four, at least in a good rotation. But he's off to a really nice start down there in Arkansas as well. Adam McOough probably has the most helium. And in the in the in the in the farm system a lot of people are all of a sudden on board the adam macko train which is pretty nice because tie you and i were were there pretty early on i would say um apparently much ever since that video of him uh throwing you know up you know mid to upper 90s dropped what was it two years ago during the pandemic like the start of the pandemic yeah yeah yeah he went out there and again it's just one start but he went five innings um he struck out i I think it was 11 guys in five innings.

Again, there's still some things to work on here. Control command is the big one, but the stuff is going to play very well. Not an ideal size guy, so he's going to have to throw strikes. He's not going to be able to survive a four baseball ball per nine type of number. But again, right now it's possibly three plus pitches, a fastball slider and a curveball that all differentiate from themselves.

It's just a matter of can he be? can he get to map rash level of control? Because if he can, then he's at least a useful number five. And if he can get to average control, he's probably a number three with some upside. Again, it's just the stature is going to limit him in prospect talks because he's only six foot tall. But it's really, really good stuff. And it's different. It's a lefty who can throw 98.

I mean, how do you not? Love that. And you, our dear listener, can actually watch these guys for yourself. if you want to, there is a minor league baseball streaming package, milb.tv, hashtag not sponsored. But yeah, and the minor league stream qualities are not great, but they have gotten better this year, at least for some of the Mariners affiliates,

AA Arkansas's stream has gotten significantly better. It's actually pretty good looking now. So if you, you know, and that's a really good, fun team right now, well with George Kirby Levi Stout, etc. What about some of the guys down in Everett? I know Isaiah Campbell finally healthy is pitching and he's looked pretty solid. He's probably too advanced for that level. I would assume that he's probably going to get a promotion at some point in the in short order.

Yeah, you'd think so. The good news is with him is that he's healthy, which hasn't been the case since he was drafted in the second round. well, competitive round B-pick, which is basically the second round. Noelby hit an inside the park home run the other day. Just kind of, you know, glided around the bases. But overall, he's looked really good. You know, he's hitting 316 with a 632 slugging.

Again, these are five games. So it's not go crazy here. Spencer Packard has absolutely crushed. And I know there are some people who are pretty high on him. I don't see it quite yet. but I mean, hey, if the Mariners could develop this guy kind of out of nowhere, great. Alberto Rodriguez is off to a very nice start as well. He's headed to double a here in the next month or so.

James Parker is kind of a fun player to watch as well from Clemson, off to a little bit of a slow start, as is Charlie Welsh. I don't know if you remember him. He's the pinch hitting specialist from the University of Arkansas, but the Mariners think they can turn into at least a backup catcher with a little bit of a hit tool, which would be fantastic. So, yeah, there's a lot going on down there in Everett. It's actually a pretty good pitching so far.

Maco, Campbell, Jimmy Joyce has kind of come out of nowhere. It looks like there might be something there. Also, somebody like Max Roberts. It's not a ton to go off of there on Max Roberts, but the stuff is pretty good. It's kind of a control thing with him as well. So Everett's not too bad. A lot of interesting talents down there. I don't know how long they're going to stay down there because Campbell's going to move up.

Noelby's going to move up. Rodriguez is going to move up probably pretty quickly. But for now, it's a pretty good roster. And I think, obviously, you know, the Mariners go college heavy in this draft. A lot of those guys are going to find their way to Everett. So in August and September, there's going to be plenty of reasons to go to the Everett Oclussox games. Well, that's going to do it for our show.

Thank you so much for joining us here on Lockdown Mariners for Colby Patnode. I'm Tadian Gonzalez. be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L-O-U-U-U-N-S-Mariners. You can follow me at Dane-G-N-Z-Z-Z and Colby at C-E-Pat-E-E-B-N-Z-L-B-E-H-E-N-E-L-O-U-L-O-U-L-U-RROME. You can find all that stuff in the description of this episode. And, hey, if you're going to the ballpark tonight, have fun. Be safe. Have a great time.

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